Second Chances
by MrsJoyceChilvers
Summary: A series of vignettes exploring the relationship between Violet Crawley and Prince Igor Kuragin.
1. Chapter 1

Her breath catches at his proximity - his closeness is almost dizzying, intoxicating even, and then his lips are on hers - gentle and yet demanding, tender and yet passionate - the perfect encapsulation of him. For one brief second she feels unsteady, and her hand absently reaches out for her cane by the chair - but then just as quickly she feels tethered, and more secure than she's felt in a lifetime. His strong arms around her - one of his hands pressed against the hollow of her back, holding her close, _pulling_ her closer, as his other hand moves to cup her cheek - his thumb caressing away the moisture now there. She doesn't know when she started to cry, crying isn't something she tends to do (Violet Crawley does not cry) - and yet here she is, tears slipping from her eyes as she is kissed by Igor, just as he kissed her back in 1874. It's like time stopped 50 years earlier. His scent is the same, he tastes the same - it's like she's 32 all over again, and as he gently but eagerly begins to press kisses along her jaw and neck, she realises that he's been right all along - they have nothing to lose anymore. They are in the autumn of the years, more years behind them than ahead — and suddenly she understands what Isobel meant by one last adventure. Igor is her last chance - but more than that, he was her first chance too - the man who opened her eyes to the possibilities of love and passion, and now here he is once more, reminding her of everything she can be. She hears him murmur her name, the word "Violet" low and almost vibrating against her skin, and all she can think now is that she wants this, wants him. She runs her hand through his hair - grey now of course, and longer, but the sensation remains familiar - and as he lifts his eyes and looks at her, she finds only one word on her lips - a soft but certain "yes". She ceases to think after that as he kisses her again - her arms slipping around him they deepen the kiss - Violet willingly securing herself to him even more - securing him to her almost - lovers of old, becoming lovers once more.


	2. Chapter 2

Although it's a different bed, a different room, he wakes with none of the disorientation that usually accompanies awakening in unfamiliar surroundings. Or perhaps it's because it really isn't all that unfamiliar. The room and bed most certainly are, but the figure beside him - no, she is familiar - familiar and welcome, and long wanted - although until the reality of the night before, thought no longer attainable. He can't help but smile at the sight of her; it's been nearly five decades since they where last together like this - and although her hair is no longer the flowing halo of flame red it once was, looking at her now he considers the sight of it, grey, slightly mussed and cascading over her bare shoulder to be more beautiful than it ever was when she was 32. He lets his eyes wander from her hair, to the bare shoulder peeking out from underneath the grey waves, and slowly along her freckled arm (oh, how he loved and still loves her freckles), to her hand resting against him - still insanely beautiful, sculptural even in how bone and muscle meet in perfect harmony. The Grantham wedding ring is no longer on her finger - she'd removed it the night before, just as he had with his own, and he can't help but want to claim her now as his wife - to finally do what he had come so close to doing back in Saint Petersburg. His eyes drift back to her face - half hidden in her curled up sleeping angle. He suspects few in her family could ever imagine her like this - the imperious and magnificent Lady Violet, in a near snuggle like position - her arm draped over a man. He knows how she presents herself to her family, to indeed everyone around, but he also knows the truth, and always has. She had clung to him during their secret assignations together in Russia, burying herself against him as they had lay together in bed - neither wanting to leave the refuge they'd found - to go back to the cold harshness of the Russian winter outside, or the cold sadness of their respective marriages. In many ways it pains him to see how so few around her seem to understand and see her for the woman she really is - but then it also warms him to think that even now, after so long apart, it is he alone she trusts to show this side of herself to.

He takes a moment to study her face as she sleeps; as a young woman she's been achingly beautiful - as pale as fine porcelain, and utterly mesmerising with her red hair and elegant gait. As he looks at her now he can't help but make the comparison to wine - cliched perhaps, but never more true. "Age cannot wither her" he thinks as he gently reaches out with the back of his fingers to lightly caress her cheek. Yes there are wrinkles now, and softness has replaced young flesh, but she's simply gone from a beautiful young woman to a stunningly beautiful lady. He loves her - even more so now than when they had come so painfully close to throwing caution to the wind and running off together.  
>His reverie and study of her is broken when she gentle stirs - a soft, barely audible moan escaping her lips as her eyes flutter open and he waits for her to register the reality of the morning. For a moment he fears that she might regret what happened, that convention and nobility might win out as they once had before in 1874, but after a moment he sees her softly smile, before slowly she reaches out her hand to caress his cheek. They're going to be fine, he thinks - Irina might well be alive, and he half fears that scandal could indeed follow, but as Violet eases closer against him, murmuring something about needing to figure out what to do about Denker and Spratt, he vows he will not give this, give her up for anything. He lost her once, but not again.<p> 


	3. Chapter 3

She smiles as she looks over at the indent on the pillow beside her; evidence of Igor's presence in her bed but a hour before. He's gone now - having dressed and slipped away before any of her staff could interrupt them. In Russia, it had always been the case of her leaving his bed, and she can't help but close her eyes and remember those moments when he'd begged her to stay a bit longer with him. In the beginning his mood had been one of lighthearted jest as he'd reach out and pull her back towards the bed, but as their affair had progressed she could tell the frustration simmering underneath. He'd made no secret of his growing displeasure at having to see her return to her husband after each assignation, or of his own misery at having to go sit at a table with Irina each evening and pretend he was happy, when in truth he was in love with another woman. It had been on one such afternoon, as she'd prepared to return to her hotel again, that he'd made the suggestion that they run away together. It had been so typical of Igor, the question so directly asked of her, that she'd never questioned whether he was serious or not - she knew he was.

The chime of her bedside clock brings her back to the present again, and the reality of the situation she now finds herself in. In truth, she doesn't know what she'll tell Spratt or Denker yet, although she's reminded that of fact that Isobel once had a gentleman stay with her for a few days - some old acquaintance of Carson's she recalls, and no one had said much about that. If the charity excuse worked for Isobel, although she very much doubts Isobel's sleeping arrangements where similar to her own (or least she hopes they weren't) - then perhaps something along similar lines can pass as a reason for Igor to be around.

Igor - how many times had she said his name the night before?! She blushes at the realisation that she actually has no idea, but knows it to be many. After nearly five decades of willing herself to forget him, to never think of his name again, let alone say it aloud, it seems like that is all she wants to do now. It almost pains her to think of calling him Prince Kuragin around Isobel later on.

She can't help but reach out and gently run her fingers over his pillow - lightly tracing the hollow where his head had rested not long ago. Even now, as she lies in bed, a dressing gown covering her naked form, and her joints starting to gently ache, she still finds it hard to believe that she has a lover. The night before, as Igor had undressed her (still deft with buttons, she'd teased him), she'd felt a wave of insecurity wash over her. It was one thing she thought for him to so ardently and passionately declare that he wanted her as his lover again, but quite another to be confronted with the reality of what fifty years can do to a body. In the end, she'd need never have worried - indeed she feels a pang of shame for ever having doubted him in the first place; he had looked at her with the same desire and want as he had when she'd been 32 - he'd touched her with the same passion too, but when he'd so tenderly taken his time and kissed her skin where he knew her hip to cause pain, she knew he was seeing her for the Violet of now, and not the young woman she had been.

In truth, she'd long thought herself incapable of feeling how she felt with Igor the previous night, indeed of how she still feels now, the morning after. The more she lets herself think over what has happened, the more aware she is of the growing warmth in body. At some stage, she can't recall when, she'd just assumed that she'd no longer have such needs and desires again. Although as she cradles Igor's pillow against herself, his scent gently enveloping her, she's recalls how until she'd met him, she'd never known she could feel such desires in the first place, let alone consider the idea of no longer having them. As a young woman, she'd been told the rather rudimentary basics of what was expected of her on her wedding night. At the time it hadn't bothered her much, although she had come to find her wifely duty to be just that, a duty. Sex had been presented to her as something for her husband, for the man - it had never occurred to her that love making might be just as much for her pleasure too. Igor had changed that; even now she feels a gentle throb rise in her core as she recalls how during their first time together he'd touched and kissed her in places she'd never dreamed someone would touch someone else. She'd been lightheaded and aching with need for him by the time he finally made love to her. She almost wants to laugh at herself - here she is, sitting in bed, having once more become the lover (and likely mistress, although she'd rather not dwell on that) of a Russian Prince, and all she can think about is how much she wants him again, not how she's going to hide this rather scandalous development from her staff or family. Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, a grandmother three times over, a great grandmother by the same number, and now it seems a wanton woman. Isobel would have a field day with this one - and Spratt might just have a heart attack.


End file.
